Joseph O. Shelby

Joseph Orville "Jo" Shelby (12 December 1830-13 February 1897) was a Confederate States Army Brigadier-General during the American Civil War.

Biography
Joseph Orville Shelby was born in Lexington, Kentucky in 1830, and he worked as a rope manufacturer until 1852, when he moved to Waverly, Missouri. Shelby came to own a hemp plantation, a ropeworks, and a sawmill, becoming one of the wealthiest men in the state. During the mid-1850s, he led a company of Border Ruffians during Bleeding Kansas, and he harassed abolitionists during the 1855 state legislature elections. When the American Civil War broke out, he raised troops for the Missouri State Guard, and he fought at the Battle of Carthage, the Battle of Wilson's Creek, and the Battle of Pea Ridge before being promoted to Colonel. In the fall of 1863, he came to lead the Iron Brigade of Missouri volunteers; from 22 September to 3 November 1863, his brigade inflicted 1,000 casualties on the Union and destroyed $2 million worth of federal property and supplies. On 15 December 1863, he was promoted to Brigadier-General, and his supply trains were destroyed at the Battle of Marks' Mills in 1864. Even after the defeat at the Battle of Westport, he captured the towns of Potosi, Boonville, Waverly, Stockton, Lexington, and California from their Union garrisons. In June 1865, rather than surrender, he and 1,000 of his men rode into Mexico, settling in the New Virginia Colony after Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico refused their service. He returned to Missouri in 1867, and he was a witness for Frank James at his 1883 trial. He served as US Marshal for the Western District of Missouri from 1893 until his death in 1897, and he appointed an African-American to office, angering some of his neighbors.